Finding others who care about the future of Transit City

It looks like I jumped the gun a little bit with yesterday’s post on the value of making smart decisions about your time and energy, which is the second step toward getting involved in social change that Amanda Sussman identifies in the first chapter of her book, The Art of the Possible. Because the third step Sussman suggests is to find other people who are working on your issue of choice.

As I noted in yesterday’s post, when it comes to an issue like Transit City, the web is a great place to find like-minded people. Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are an especially great source of news and updates, and of course you can follow people who are sharing ideas or information that you find useful.

But beyond just knowing who’s posting informative links or angry rants on the web, you’ll want to know which people and organizations are involved in the issue on a more vital level. You’ll want to know who’s for and against the results you want. By looking at even one well-known organization, Sussman says, “you can familiarize yourself with who the main actors are and what they are working on.”

In this case, we can start with two links I’ve already shared. Above, you’ll find a link to the official Transit City page on the TTC website. They’re one of the major players, of course, and their site offers a clear and simple summary of what they’re working on at the moment:

“Mayor Ford has requested that the TTC develop a new transit plan consistent with his platform. Work on a new plan is underway. For more info on the current plan see the Metrolinx website.”

From that short blurb alone, you get another one of the key players, a sense of their relationship, a look at where the issue stands, and a link to more information.

And if the mayor’s involved, so is city council. And if you take another look at the post on blogTO that I shared yesterday, you’ll see a list of the councillors who are for and against the plan, courtesy of the Globe and Mail.

In just a few minutes, we’ve learned a lot about some of the key players on this issue, where they stand, and even how to contact them. Not bad, right? And now we’re in a good position to learn a lot more about the issue, which takes us to the next step.